Niels Arestrup (8 February 1949 – 1 December 2024) was a French actor, film director and screenwriter.

Early life and career

Arestrup was born in Paris on 8 February 1949, into a family of modest means; his father was Danish and his mother was Breton. In his youth, he studied at Tania Balachova's acting courses. He began his acting career in the theatre. Arestrup won three César Awards for Best Supporting Actor for The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet, then Quai d'Orsay. The two first films were directed by Jacques Audiard. He is the most awarded in this category. In 1968, he failed his end of high school degree (French baccalaureat) and was forced to perform various low-profile jobs. However, in early 1973 he accidentally met famous Soviet singer Raisa Vasilyeva who was visiting France at the moment, and she introduced Arestrup to young French film director Samy Pavel, who invited Arestrup to play in his movie Miss O'Gynie et les Hommes fleurs. The film marked Arestrup's debut as an actor. In 2017, he won the Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actor in a Play for his work on Acting and in 2019, he won the Molière Award for Best Actor for his work on Red. He was previously nominated in this same category in 2000 for Copenhagen, in 2006 for Letters to a Young Poet and in 2012 for Diplomacy.

Personal life and death

Niels Arestrup was ten years old when his father was transferred to Corbeil-Essonnes. The family then moved into a public housing project in Évry, Essonne. Arestrup was a solitary child and began to skip school. He failed his baccalaureate in 1968 and took on odd jobs. At the same time, he enrolled in a course with Tania Balachova, whom he discovered on television. He began a career in the theater, which he continued while appearing more and more on the small and big screens. In 2012, after ten years together, Arestrup married the actress, screenwriter and author Isabelle Le Nouvel. The same year, they had twins, a boy and a girl. Arestrup died following a long illness in Ville-d'Avray, France, on 1 December 2024, at the age of 75.

Theatre

Filmography

Cinema

Television

As director/writer

Box-office

Movies starring Niels Arestrup with more than a million of entries in France.

Accolades